


Kings and Queens

by VerdantMoth



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Arthur Is King, Consensual Infidelity, F/M, Female Pregnancy, M/M, Magic, Magical restraints, Mpreg
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-02
Updated: 2018-07-19
Packaged: 2019-08-23 17:15:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,352
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16623077
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VerdantMoth/pseuds/VerdantMoth
Summary: Arthur runs his hands over the swell of Gwen’s belly, eyes aglow with delight. Seven years, they tried, and here he kneels beside their bed, hands thrumming with the gentle kicks of his unborn heir.





	1. Chapter 1

Arthur runs his hands over the swell of Gwen’s belly, eyes aglow with delight. Seven years, they tried, and here he kneels beside their bed, hands thrumming with the gentle kicks of his unborn heir.

Gwen looks tired. Tired but proud, as she cards her fingers through Arthur’s blond hair.

“Are you pleased, my king?”

He smiles up at her, the first in many moons. “As ever I have been, my queen.”

She nods, tugs his locks sharply. “Then you will do as requested? For the sake of this babe?”

Arthur does not hesitate. “Anything.”

\---

“And where shall I go?”

Arthur shrugs, unconcerned. “You’ll send word though, when it is time.”

Merlin stands tall, despite the tremble in his shoulders. “You cannot, Arthur. You cannot take this from me.”

Arthur brushes lint from his shoulder. “If you steal from me, Merlin, I will have you hunted like a dog.”

Pain blooms like muddy gold in Merlin’s eyes, but his voice is steady. “You will not win this one, Arthur. I will not bow on this.”

Arthur places a large hand over Merlin’s rounded belly, larger than Gwen’s, despite the frailty of Merlin. “You already have, Merls. You lost before you even knew you were playing.”

\---

Gwen gives birth to a beautiful little boy with dark skin, brown curls, and blue eyes.

Arthur sends his knight’s out the next day, with orders not to return until his bastard is brought to him.

Mordred guides their path, eyes cloudy as he searches the other plan, following the trail of Arthur’s seed mingled with Merlin’s magic.

They will not fail. Arthur will not allow it.


	2. For Love Of Queen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thunder claps to the left of him, and Baby wails. This time Merlin does too, even as he rocks the infant in his arms, tries to keep Baby warm despite the growing winter.

The babe won’t settle. Merlin had always known it was a possibility; that the babe would follow the more magical heritage but he’d held out hope that the baby would be normal.

Baby is crying again, and Merlin wants to cry right along. He’s sore, all over, body not having rested since Arthur banished him. His chest aches from the growth to feed the baby. His nipples are in a constant state of chapped. Beyond that though, he’s weary all throughout.

The magic that has kept their perusers at bay is flagging, exhausted from the tasks of healing Merlin from birth, of sustaining an ever changing infant, of trying to keep them safe.

_ Just for a moment,  _ he thinks.  _ Just for a moment I’ll sleep. _

_ \--- _

Merlin hasn’t named his child yet. He knows that some parents give them a name they hope the child will settle into. Others gift the babe a name knowing it might change. His mother hadn’t wanted to name him until he’d settled, but at one years old he was still shifting.

It wasn’t until his first day in Camelot that he’s skin had snapped into place and stuck.

Thunder claps to the left of him, and Baby wails. This time Merlin does too, even as he rocks the infant in his arms, tries to keep Baby warm despite the growing winter.

\--- 

He’d gone to his people originally. Afraid and so close to birth. They had felt it, had predicted to the hour when Baby would be born. They had offered him some furs, a few healing plants.

He couldn’t stay though. Not with all of Camelot hunting him down. He hadn’t known it that night. Neither had those who hosted him.

Baby woke him. He’d smelled the smoke.

Part of him still feels guilty for the way he fled.

Part of him knows he’d be dead if he hadn’t.

\---

Mordred is close. Mordred has been close since the night they burned the camp. But tonight Merlin can taste the coppery clove of his magic. Baby is sick. Merlin is starving. He doesn’t have enough magic in him to flee this time.

“Baby please.  _ Settle.  _ ” He tries to put command behind the word, but Baby just blinks at him, red-eyed and pale.

When the nights burst into the cave, he thinks  _ maybe it’s for the best. Surely Gaius can save my child. _

Leon claps cold chains around his wrist. Chains Merlin helped create to subdue the more violent offenders with magic. He nearly weeps at the sudden emptiness behind his breastbone.

Percival moves to take Baby from his breast, and Merlin panics. He struggles, tries to use his nails to keep the knight away. Elyan steps forward, gently pulls the larger knight back. “It cannot hurt to allow them to weather the journey together.”

The toss a cloak around Merlin’s shoulders. If they’re concerned because of the blue-hue of his skin, or embarrassed by his indignity, no one says.

\---

Mordred tells him the journey should take only days. Merlin thinks he might be okay if it takes weeks, maybe months.

He doesn’t let anyone touch Baby. Doesn’t let them look. When they ask for Baby’s name, Merlin goes deaf.

\--- 

Mordred is right in his predictions. Four days later Merlin stands before the king in his borrowed cloak, a frail baby latched to his chest.

“I told you Merlin, I would have what was mine.”

Gwen stands beside him, her own babe bright eyed and rosy cheeked. He looks to her, pleads with her. “We were friends once, you and I.”

Gwen clutches her son to her. “I cannot risk Balin’s right to the throne.”

Merlin stands tall. Looks the queen in the eyes. He is quiet when he asks, “Does he know?”

Gwen just smiles a sad thing at him. “Oh Merlin. Everyone knows. But we do what we must. Give me the child. I will raise your baby as Morgana was raised. We will spare no expense for the child’s upbringing. Your baby will feel loved and cherished and will know all of the niceties you never did.”

“And how did that turn out for Morgana? Or have you forgotten where her cross lies?”

Everyone gapes at him, at his audacity. But Merlin cannot let them take Baby.

He has an idea though. One so far fetched he feels insane with it. His gaze finds Arthur’s. “Let me stay on. Let me raise my child. As a nanny, a tutor, how every you shall call it. But do not take this baby from my life. You’ve already taken everything else. Leave me this.”

Gwen shakes her head, puts her hand on his wrist and implores, “Banish him. Give him chance, no influence on the innocent.”

Arthur regards his wife, regards Merlin. “We will raise the child as our ward.”

Gwen is smug and Merlin feels the fight leave him. 

“However,”  Arthur continues, one hand reaching for his wife’s. “Merlin will oversee to the child’s day to day needs.”

He fixes Merlin with a cold look. "Should you ever reveal the child's heritage, you do so on pain of death."


	3. For Kingdom Sake

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It happens like a sigh, Wynn huffs in sleep the eve before Balin’s second name day, and Merlin feels it at the base of his spine. He drops the laundry he was taking and tears through the castle to reach his child, to know the fate.

Gwen is never gentle with him, when she steals Baby from his arms. She thinks he’s a curse, that he has emptied her womb. She steals Baby from his arms, coos at the bright eyed child, but she does not love Baby.

Arthur adors Baby. Perhaps more than he loves Balin, something Merlin cannot fault him for. Balin grows, his skin ever darkening, his eyes blue, but neither Gwen nor Arthur’s. His hair, deep in color, shines red in the right light, and his smile is every bit the knight’s who trains him.

“Wynn,” Arthur says as he and Gwen watch Baby sleep. “We shall name the babe Wynn.”

Merlin does not cry, or even flinch. He curls his arms protectively around the child, watching as the skin ripples over the child. The Settling is coming, he can feel it. Wynn will settle far earlier than Merlin, and he fears for this child.

\---

It happens like a sigh, Wynn huffs in sleep the eve before Balin’s second name day, and Merlin  _ feels  _ it at the base of his spine. He drops the laundry he was taking and tears through the castle to reach his child, to know the fate.

Gwen is there, smug and proud as she towers over the cradle.  “Welcome, Merlin. Would you like to meet your daughter?”

She picks the girl up, runs a finger through brown curls. Traces the soft lines of Merlin’s daughter’s cheeks. “It’s for the best really, little Wynn. Wouldn’t want you challenging your brother.”

She cradles the toddler to her chest, hums a near-forgotten lullaby. Merlin aches with the need to hold her, to experience this new version of his child, to feel the cool skin against his own. Gwen speaks again. “You’re released, Merlin. It wouldn’t be proper for you to continue as Wynn’s nanny.”

“You dreamt of this moment, didn’t you? When you could expel me from her life.” He is surprised at how hollow his own voice is, at the emptiness.

Gwen shrugs. “A mother only wants the best for her children. 

\--- 

Gwen seeks to banish him from Camelot once more, but Merlin refuses. He stands before the court, power rippling in his veins, murky, liquid, and not at all the gold he grew up with. He speaks, to Arthur only, ignoring the Queen with her iron grip on the crown.

“You promised me this, Arthur. It is my right to be by her side.”

Arthur regards him with bruises under his eyes. “You relinquished that right when you agreed upon her new heritage.”

The air in the room is still, suffocatingly so. “An agreement whose terms promised me a place in her life.”

Arthur huffs. “We assumed she was or would be a boy, Merlin. She has no use for you. As my daughter, she’ll need Guinevere's influence. Not yours.”

Merlin raises a fist and the walls splinter. Guards begin to approach, spears at the ready, but Arthur holds up a hand. There’s a sharp pain in his eyes, a warning meant for Merlin alone. “You risk everything, Merlin, with this act of defiance.”  _ My power is limited, in this regard. Tread wisely. _

“You would do well, Merlin, not to risk Wynn’s future here. She is an unholy thing, an abomination born from unnatural circumstances. Should she show signs of magic, she will need the protection we can offer her, protection afforded to those in Camelot who prove themselves worthy. She has a chance, here within the walls of Camelot, as a ward of the King himself. Should you challenge us, should you invoke your right, she will be considered a threat against the throne. You should be honored your daughter is so loved, that her uniqueness is seen so innocently.”

Arthur glances at his wife, his lips thin and his eyes tight. “Merlin, we will pursue every threat fully, and to the end.”

“You cannot banish me from her life.”

Arthur rubs his eyes tiredly. “You have one day to pack, to say your goodbyes. If you linger…” 

“If you linger,” Gwen says in a whisper that curls about Merlin’s ears, “I’ll burn you myself.”

\---

He’s still staring into Wynn’s empty cradle, when Arthur slips in. He wraps a hand around Merlin’s neck, slides the other to cup Merlin through his breeches. “Lie with me.”

Merlin does not respond, does not dare breath. “Give me a proper heir. A son. Give me a child who’s bears rights to the throne. Not a daughter who cannot rule. Not a son I did not father.”

“I cannot promise a son, Arthur. And even so, he would have to fight to prove he is your son, to prove he has more claim than Balin, than Wynn. There is no proper way to prove legitimacy, Arthur, and even then, Gwen is your wife.”

Arthur palms him, grips him gently, licks a line around his ear. “We both know you can promise me what I want. Just as we know there are potions to prove parentage.” 

Merlin tries to pull away, but the grip around his neck tightens. “And would you betray Gwen this way? Would you see her beheaded for a crime you intend to commit, one you already have?”

Arthur’s hands tremble against him. Merlin can hear him swallow. “Gwen’s ambitions have grown beyond her station. Even a Queen has lines that should not be crossed. Balin would have been enough for me, a suitable heir. Wynn could have grown up aside her brother and I would have been happy. But Gwen seeks to banish whom she wishes, makes move to deny Pendragon blood a place in this castle. Gwen would see me removed from my throne long before my time has come.”

“And you want to bring a third child into this mess?” Merlin manages to break free from Arthur’s grip. “You would have me foster another life, have me add another piece to the game we are playing?”

He turns on the king, tries to keep the anger from shivering in his voice. “And what would happen to Balin, to Wynn, if I gift you your son?”

Arthur stands, shoulders back and eyes alight. “Balin and his mother would be given their own land. A sizeable fortune to set them up.”

“And Wynn?”

“A daughter has no claim to the throne, Merlin. Not without a king. But Camelot takes care of Princesses. She would want for nothing, and a suitable marriage would be sought for her.”

“I am not a pawn to be played against your Queen. Neither is Wynn.” But he allows Arthur to take his hand, follows the king aware of the risk he is taking for a chance to feel Arthur’s skin against his own.

\---

He slips into the room in the early hours of the night. He slips past guards softened by the night’s drinks. The King and the Queen sleep in their own chambers, certain of their power, of their authority.

Wynn sleeps nestled against Balin, a rare chance at childhood offered them this evening. He leans down, presses a kiss laden with luck to the boy’s head and then picks up his daughter. The morning sky is bursting pink and orange as he slips between the gates, gets lost in the woods. The castle will sleep well, as well as the guards, for at least another few hours.


End file.
